


Talking With Strangers

by paperiuni



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Drama, Eventual Smut, Fake Marriage, Families of Choice, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, I Just Threw Romance Tropes At This Until Some Stuck, Liberal Arts Represent, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Mutual Pining, Pining While Banging, Romance, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:00:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: It's definitely them. It's a very involved kiss, possibly the French kind. The video keeps looping. Alec stabs it into a pause with an unsteady thumb.Fellow students and friends, Alec and Magnus have a well-established housemate arrangement. It's thrown for a loop when a kiss gone public threatens Alec's ability to stay—so Magnus suggests a foolproof solution. What's a little marriage of convenience between friends, after all?
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 140
Kudos: 244





	1. (What's the Story) Morning Glory?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here's the thing. This story dug its teeth into my brain and demanded to happen. It's 2020 and I'm just writing shit in whatever chunks I can manage and posting it on the internet so other tired people can hopefully find some fun and/or distraction in my words.
> 
> So I'm putting this up. Posting schedule: as fast as I can manage. I'm cycling between WIPs as I'm able. ❤
> 
> This is set somewhere Vaguely European, but I made a point of not naming too many places. All official and academic processes have been fudged in the name of romantic dramedy. Roll with it.
> 
> Lynne and Mindy held my hand and were very sweet and also dirty enablers.
> 
> *
> 
>  **Content Note** : Alec's parents are not nice people in this fic (at least for now). The bad parenting is counteracted by loving friends, but for dramatic purposes Maryse is, at this stage, a pretty horrible person.
> 
> Also: there will be explicit sex in this fic in future chapters, hence the rating.

On the day that is going to define the rest of his life, Alec jerks awake to the gentle chiming of his phone and proceeds to fall off the couch.

The Chairman, sprawled belly-up on the rug, leaps up with a yowl and scrambles to safety under the yellow armchair.

"Easy there, buddy," Alec mumbles to the cat. His head feels like a small rodent died in his mouth, stirred into a putrid undead existence, and crawled its way out through his ear. He was sleeping on the _couch._ He's still in the clothes he wore last night. He's probably drooled onto Magnus's genuine Turkish kilim cushions.

A calendar reminder blinks on his phone screen: his essay to Professor Penhallow is due today at five p.m. sharp.

"Shit," he breathes out, reaching a wobbly upright position. "Shit, shit, shit."

This is the essay he was convinced he still had two days to write. The essay that might well decide his admission to the Master's program next autumn. Without the MA program, he can kiss his student visa renewal a fond goodbye.

Still, somehow, he said yes to going out with Magnus and Maia last night. _Alec, you haven't left the library in three weeks, except for lectures,_ was apparently a killer argument. He meant to slink back home by midnight, sleep for ten winks and dive right back into work.

Instead he's got a vicious hangover and eight hours in which to cough up smooth written work for a professor known to fail students for missing her deadlines by minutes.

The notification log on his phone shows only the usual clutter in the group chats, so he empties it without looking. Since there's no Magnus, Izzy, Jace or Mom in his messages, he can check the rest later.

Nobody answers his holler. The Chairman huddles under the armchair, his speckled tail sticking out. The lack of grievances being aired in Alec's direction suggests the cat has been fed.

That means Magnus came home last night. Alec hobbles toward the kitchen and the mirage of coffee.

The kitchen table sports a folded note, pinned under a blister strip of ibuprofen. It says, in Magnus's slanted handwriting:

_For your head, just in case. Breakfast in the fridge. Talk to you tonight?_

It's the most Magnus thing imaginable that he left Alec a hand-written note instead of texting him. Bemused, but in a nice way, Alec shakes his head and then regrets it.

It's less like Magnus to have left Alec breakfast. They've shared the apartment for almost three years, and a friendship for at least two and a half. Alec's introversion and fastidious habits mesh with Magnus's sharp wit and friendly nonchalance. They can occupy the same space without getting on each other's nerves. If Alec is honest with himself, he's met most of the friends he has here thanks to his housemate and his near-universal charm.

It's not that Alec dislikes people. He just likes them in small quantities and quiet settings. Yesterday he was maybe trying to push himself on that. To be a little more like his siblings. To take some chances.

In eight hours, he has to send an essay to his most demanding professor.

He needs, in order: a shower; coffee, black; the fruits of Magnus's kindness; the tram to campus. He switches his phone to _do not disturb_ and sets about salvaging his academic future before it tips into the abyss.

*

A little after five p.m. Alec climbs onto the tram and collapses into an empty seat, forcing some more deserving passenger than a bone-tired university student with his brain still smoking to stand for their trip.

He sure wrote an essay. That's all that can be said to its credit.

If too much cheap beer hadn't been such a huge contributing factor to his current state, he might want a drink. He should've walked. He needs fresh air, not the rush hour press of people herding their kids, wrangling their shopping and shouting into their phones.

He's barely looked at his own since morning. The little red dots on his start screen keep multiplying.

It's a crisp, clear day, the kind that is spring in the sun but still winter in the shade. He hops off three stops before his own and meanders past the shopping street and the park corner, backpack hung off one stiffened shoulder. He's twenty-three and he creaks. Magnus and his taiji routine would mock him mercilessly.

The wind is off the river, humming in the knobby elm trees that line their street. The apartment is wedged at the end of the building. The oriel windows in the living room open onto a stamp-sized backyard that barely fits two lawn chairs and the giant lilac bush Magnus hung with fairy lights last year.

Alec ducks through the wrought-iron gate and in the back door, which is another relic from an earlier stage of the building's history.

It's not a convenient place to live. The boiler clunks at night and once the pipes froze at New Year's, forcing them to flee to Catarina's studio across the old town. But the rooms are high and airy, the rent a bit suspiciously cheap, and—this last factor has begun to build up sneaky, unspoken weight recently—Magnus is there.

To sum up, Alec loves this weird apartment. The old stone walls and his room at the top of the steep staircase, the back door that you need to shimmy open, the cat that attacks his shoelaces the moment he drops his combat boots on the doormat.

He looks into the kitchen on the right, the living room on the left. The door to Magnus's bedroom is open, and the clothes scattered about offer a clue even before Alec hears the shower cough and sputter into life in the bathroom. Magnus yelps evocatively.

Yeah. Nobody in their right mind would live here.

Alec unloads his stuff onto his bed, changes his shirt, and brings his phone back downstairs. Magnus left him breakfast; he might as well settle his brain by making dinner. Between both their schedules being packed for the last month, he feels like they mostly say good morning and good night and make sure the Chairman's demands are met.

Last night might not count, either, since they ended up among a horde of stressed-out students spread out in a friend-of-a-friend's living room. Alec's memories of the impromptu house party fade toward the end. He hopes it was worth today's stress spike.

An official white envelope greets him on the kitchen table. Immigration affairs, letting him know he needs to send his visa renewal application. He shoves the letter onto the windowsill and digs into the cabinet for rice and lentils. Not today.

The bathroom door sounds. Alec calls out, "Hey, Magnus, you good with curry for dinner? We've got everything for a batch."

A pause. Magnus clears his throat. "Oh. Yeah, of course. I'll be there in a minute." His damp footfalls are muffled by the hallway rug.

That was a bit subdued, Alec thinks, but it's probably been a long day for them both. Between his dissertation and his freelance work, Magnus has a lot to balance. He's in his second postgraduate year, with four years on Alec, but it's not unheard of for people to mistake Alec as the older one between them. Magnus blames that on his own unquenchable joie de vivre and Alec's overly serious disposition. Alec lets him.

He probably lets Magnus get away with a lot of things. Like leaving his clothes flung over every chair and armrest and blasting old Britpop on Sunday mornings when Alec would like to sleep in. Like dragging Alec to all the obscure eateries that serve fantastic ethnic food and all the good views of the river Alec always missed on his own. Like remembering which teas and beers Alec likes and keeping him supplied, because it seems to make Magnus happy to do these little favors for him.

Where was he? He should check the curry recipe, just to be sure. He reaches for his phone as a message pops up.

_ALEC WHERE R U_

He flicks open his chat with Izzy to another dozen in an increasingly agitated chain, all in the last few hours.

_Alec are u there we need to talk_

_mom saw your friend's video you need to call me_

_CALL ME_

"What the fuck," he says, half to the Chairman, who has curled up on the windowsill. It's about noon over on the East Coast. His sister should be in class.

He has two missed calls from Maia, too. That's unusual; for her, anything more than to-the-point texts is a sign of extra care.

"Magnus?" Alec circles to the hallway to find Magnus's bedroom door ajar. "Do you know anything—"

His phone is on silent, but the flash of an incoming call pulls his eye back to it. He gauges his options for a second, then backtracks to the kitchen, shuts the door, and—with a bracing breath—accepts the call.

"Hi, Mom," he says, as if it was a perfectly normal thing for his immensely busy mother to spend her lunch break on international calls with her eldest son, who is at best uncertainly perched on the family tree. She wanted him to go into law. He went into museum studies instead, at a storied old-world university with a top-notch Master's program.

If he makes it in.

"Alec." The chill in Maryse's voice jerks him into attention. "So this is how you choose to conduct yourself."

"Uh—" There are no excuses with his parents. There are expectations and consummate results. "I'm sorry I didn't call on the weekend. I had an essay. Did you get my text?"

"An essay." Her disdain could eat holes into the timber floor under his feet. "I assume your housemate was kind enough to assist you again?"

"He's a professional." Alec takes care to keep his inflection neutral, in spite of the dread condensing in him. "He swears I'm not bothering him, and he's been a lot of help."

"So it seems. How long has this _assistance_ been going on?"

"What?" He doesn't think he's gone _what?_ at his mother since some teenage outburst that was swiftly corrected.

"You seem to imagine we're just pouring money into your studies so you can throw your future away," she snaps. "We let you go overseas. We let you pursue the best chance you have at making a good career. And you reward us with this—this _display_ plastered all over the web! With that _man_ you speak so highly of."

"What," Alec says again, in a choked whisper. His shoulders meet the closed door. His heart drums against his throat, blocking his voice, disturbing his thoughts.

His mother does not stop. "How long has this been going on?"

"Mom, I—I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't be naïve, Alec." She scoffs. "I've seen that video. I have no idea what's gotten into you, but this is a simple matter: you'll move out of that apartment at once. You'll finish your semester and come home. I'm sure your father can talk to someone to find you a placement next fall."

Something is very, very wrong. The gnawing sense that the day is off-kilter finally aligns for Alec. "I can't come back now. I have a good shot at the MA program. And, Magnus and I, we're not—we don't—"

Maryse is probably in her office, severe and imperious, reaching out to correct his course like a badly moved chess piece she can yet save from elimination. To her, there is only the world according to Maryse Lightwood. It barely allows for a son who wants to pursue a liberal arts degree. It definitely doesn't allow for the rest of what she's intimating. That Alec has something with Magnus. That Alec's _done_ something with Magnus.

"You will give your notice and you will move out," she says. "Or you can forget getting another cent of family money for your studies. I'll speak to you again tonight."

Then, as Alec is struggling for any words that would make sense, she ends the call.

Numbly he opens the chat with Izzy. At the start of her frantic messages, there's a link. At the end of the link, as the load bar inches to completion, is a social media post under a name Alec vaguely recognizes.

The video is nine seconds long. A somewhat grainy nine seconds, set to a jumble of music and chattering voices, of two people against a wall in a crowded living room. One has his hands in the other's color-dashed hair. The other is giving a middle finger to somebody going _whoo-hoo!_ from the side. They're locked in a deep, heedless kiss, Magnus's other hand fisted in Alec's shirt.

It's definitely them. It's a very involved kiss, possibly the French kind. The video keeps looping. On the second repeat, Alec stabs it into a pause with an unsteady thumb.

"Alec?" The door handle rattles. He steps away, on a reflex, so Magnus can ease the door open.

Magnus's hair hangs in a towel-dry sweep, the emerald green streaks barely visible. He's bare-faced and barefoot, his expression drawn in untidy lines of guilt and concern. Seeing him that unguarded should strike Alec as inconveniently precious. Now the sight of Magnus's face only curls a fist of shaky horror in his stomach.

Alec holds up his phone. "Is this what you wanted to talk about?"

Magnus's eyes shutter lightly, a telling cue in itself, and then focus on Alec's face. "Yeah. I would've stayed in the morning, but I couldn't miss the seminar. I'm sorry. I know you were drunk off your ass. So was I. I shouldn't have—it was a stupid impulse."

"An _impulse?_ " Alec hurls the word at Magnus. He can't begin to separate all the emotions that drive it. "You—I—"

Oh, the kiss looks very mutual. It's by no means Alec's first in semi-public; he's out to all his local friends. The problem is that it is Magnus's mouth on his own. The same soft, expressive mouth that twists, crestfallen, as Magnus takes a step back.

The _problem_ is so much bigger than any improper ideas Alec maybe has about Magnus's mouth.

He'd dared to think he was safe here.

"My mom," he gets out, "is gonna cut out my allowance. I don't know how she saw this. You know they don't know I'm gay. If she pulls the money now, and she _will,_ it won't fucking matter if I impress Penhallow, because I can't get my visa renewed."

Magnus slumps into a chair. It's utterly without grace, like Alec's words had just peeled the strength from his limbs. "Oh, god."

"How did this even happen?" Alec shoves the phone screen down onto the table. The frozen image prickles his insides. "We're not... like that."

At another time Alec would probably admire the way Magnus faces this. His voice is smooth and sincere. "I kissed you. Because someone dared me to kiss the most attractive person in the room. I'd add, 'and I couldn't really kiss myself', but this doesn't seem the moment. And, well, you've seen the rest."

"Yeah," Alec says, "yeah, it's not the fucking moment, Magnus. This has just blown my future into tiny little pieces. Do you realize how goddamn fragile my life here is? I've got to get my shit together for the visa, including some way to make a _living!_ "

"What about those scholarships? The museum job you talked about?" Magnus is still grasping at straws. Alec loves and hates the way he'll keep trying to solve things. There's no way he can get Alec out of this hole, though. "There was the internship, too?"

"Maybe, a long shot, and no. I need to get into the program to even have a chance at a scholarship." Alec grips his own hair, too hard, until the roots pinch his scalp. Magnus's face seems to swim in his vision. "Fuck. I—I can't be here."

Magnus says his name, low and stricken. It rebounds from the roaring wall of panic that rises up at last. Alec hurries past him, barely yanks his boots on and grabs his jacket before bolting out the door. The evening air is blustery, smelling of exhaust and damp trees and nearing rain.

He seems to overflow the lines of his body. His feet meet the cobbled sidewalk at a run.

*

Alec ends up at the riverfront, out of breath, bathed in sweat under his winter jacket. He sits on a bench and texts Izzy a confirmation that he's okay and will figure things out. It's a bald lie, but he has to reassure her somehow.

He narrowly avoids bringing up the video again, to watch it on a hopeless loop. It already feels etched in his brain, anyway. Looking at it won't change anything.

The wet wind chases him back into the shelter of the old town streets. The only thing he knows is that he can't go back to his family. He's strung his hopes on getting his degree and finding a job here. He hid for eighteen years from everyone but Jace and Izzy. Magnus was the first person other than his siblings that he came out to. Magnus, who apologizes to nobody for being who and what he is.

Magnus, who shattered the ground under Alec's feet with a kiss he can't really remember. It's lost in the haze of music and laughter and rare liberty that is all he has left of last night.

He's seen Magnus kiss plenty of people. Played wingman a time or two, been a shoulder to cry on when a date left Magnus swinging in the wind. Magnus shares his affections generously. That's never bothered Alec.

This, though. He runs the knowledge of the kiss through his brain and can't land on a firm conclusion. Magnus is his friend, his most trusted—if not only—partner in crime, the reckless influence he needs when he gets too swamped in schoolwork. Magnus probably didn't think twice about locking lips with Alec on a whim.

It doesn't even matter _who_ he's kissing. It's a guy. There's evidence. That's enough to wreck everything.

He'll have to go back to his family. He should never have taken their money, but it meant he didn't have to work or take out loans. It let him concentrate on getting his degree. It let him pretend at civility with his parents—and gave them a stranglehold on him that his mother just wielded without remorse.

He has to stop thinking about both his parents and Magnus. He needs a plan that will let him stay _here,_ in this city that's embraced him, even if not in the apartment.

He's walked around for hours, and his jacket and scarf are getting too thin for the misting night rain. The temperature drops. The wind steepens. He toys with the idea of asking to crash at Maia's, or even calling Simon or Clary and braving their nerd cave-slash-art studio. Any of them would make room for him, whatever his excuse for needing a couch for the night. Still, none of his friends can untangle the root of his problem. In the end, he just goes home.

 _Home_ in the actual, solid sense of the word.

The lights are on in the living room, shining through the drawn curtains. Alec takes the front door this time, turns the key in the lock with a strange mix of shame and indignation, and lets his feet sink in the fluffy rug he insisted they keep despite the cat hair. It warms his cold-stiffened toes. There's the faint smell of vegetable curry in the air; Magnus must have wrapped up Alec's efforts at dinner. The Chairman bounds up to rub his cheek on Alec's ankle, purring for all he's worth.

"Hi, tiny cat." Alec fishes the cat up with one hand and squishes him against his shoulder. So bolstered, he steps into the living room.

Magnus is sitting cross-legged on the couch, his laptop between his knees. An empty coffee mug has been deposited on top of the open journal on the coffee table, hedged by a smattering of printouts. Magnus has never quite gotten on board with the paperless office concept. He's tapping a turquoise ballpoint pen against his temple.

His hand stills as Alec stops beside the couch. "Hey. Welcome back."

"Hey," Alec says, unsure what to do with the later half of Magnus's greeting. "Another early-morning deadline, huh?"

"Not this time." Magnus presses his lips between his teeth, then lets them part. "Something more important. Can I talk to you?"

Something in his tone leeches the last of the fight out of Alec. He's cold and tired and torn too many ways to focus on anything useful. A part of him wants to go to bed and sleep forever. Another knows he'd probably lie down and stare at the ceiling, too keyed up to fall asleep. As he collapses into an armchair—the cobalt one, the one Magnus has designated as _his_ —the Chairman melts down onto his thigh, his legs drooping on either side.

"That cat loves you," Magnus says, entirely mild. "It's a lost cause. I don't think I'll ever win him back."

"Come on, it's not like he's forgotten who keeps him in kibble." It's too close to their normal back-and-forth. Alec has to remember where they are. "You wanted to talk. I'm listening."

Straightening his back, Magnus pushes his laptop onto the couch seat. "First of all, I'm sorry. It doesn't fix things, but I want you to know that. I know I'm... easy. I kiss people because they have a nice laugh, or because I'm in a mood, or any number of reasons."

"Mm-hm." Alec lets his expression say that Magnus seems to be stalling. It staves off his own anxiety.

Evidently Magnus catches on, since he ducks his head. "I'm just saying that all it means is that I think you're devastatingly handsome. Which you already know."

"So you keep telling me." Damn it. Alec can't let Magnus make him laugh. Not now.

"Only because it's true." Magnus's mouth flirts with a smile. "There's more important things about you, though. You're sweet, and dependable, and too honest for your own good. There are people here who'll never forgive me if I let you go back to your miserable parents." He sighs, and his gaze roams before coming back to Alec. " _I_ won't forgive myself."

An uninvited lump thickens in Alec's throat. "You can't help that, Magnus. Unless you can wiggle your fingers and make some immigration official believe I've got the money to live here for two more years." He strokes a knuckle behind the Chairman's ear. Miffed, the cat slithers to the floor. So much for his undying regard for Alec. "It's not like you recorded us. Or put it online for your friends to gawk at. _That_ part's not your fault."

He knows that is true. Magnus probably does, too. Still, it makes Alec feel better to have said it aloud.

"No," Magnus says, "but I did kiss you at a party where I knew Griffin and his damn phone were present. You probably missed it, but Maia rained holy hell on him for that post. I put in a strong word or two, as well. It's... gone now, but obviously the damage is done."

"Oh." Alec has a vague impression of an obnoxious law student in Simon's wider circles to go with the name. He hadn't gotten as far as the actual culprit. The crater put through his life claimed his attention. "Uh, thanks. Won't wipe it from my mom's retinas, though."

"On that note—" Magnus taps at his laptop touchpad, a clear nervous gesture, since he doesn't even look at the browser window that flickers back into view. "I did some research. It's, ah, unorthodox, but there is something I can do for you, perfectly legally, that would let you stay in the country."

Hope and disbelief tangle together. Alec leans forward, taking in the expression on Magnus's face, both delicate and determined. "What do you mean?"

What he needs is a job. One he can do alongside a full course load, so good luck with that. Or a scholarship, but the MA program only gives out a few. Magnus seems to have friends in the unlikeliest places, but that one is probably beyond his social network.

"I'm a citizen." Magnus's shrug is so studiedly philosophical it undermines itself. "A single one, with full legal capacity."

"So you're gonna... what? Stage a one-man takeover of immigration affairs?"

Alec is half trying to joke, because something about Magnus is too heavy, like he's set himself to a purpose Alec can't quite pick out. He's made himself into an immovable object in the middle of the dim living room.

"Tempting." Again, Magnus brushes up against a smile that doesn't stay. "More of a grand gesture than a practical solution, though."

"Would be your style." Alec's mouth feels dry; his heart quickens. Magnus looks utterly serious.

"No, Alec," Magnus says. "I probably can't storm a government building for you. But if you'll accept a much less romantic alternative, I can marry you."

*

The first thing Alec does upon being proposed to is lean forward between his knees and take a few quivering breaths. Hysterical laughter thrums in his throat. He hasn't eaten since morning; that is probably not helping.

Then Magnus is there, crouched next to him, a careful hand between his shoulder-blades. "Much as I like it when beautiful people swoon for me, are you okay? I did try to ease you into it."

"No, you didn't, you asshole." Alec can't keep the laughter back. He shakes with it under Magnus's touch. "You were building up to it! What the fuck, man, you think I haven't had enough shocks today?"

"Okay, let it out." Magnus rubs circles into Alec's back, unasked, and because it is calming, Alec lets him. In a softer tone, Magnus says, "Maybe dinner first? That's usually par for the course. Even though I already ate."

"Oh, god, will you stop," Alec mutters, but Magnus has the right idea. Maybe things will make more sense with some food in him.

So they both drift into the kitchen, Alec to heat up curry and rice, Magnus to make an unnecessary production of brewing a pot of tea. For a minute you could almost believe it's an unremarkable weekday evening in their household. Magnus has made the curry spicier than Alec would, but also added sweet potato. It warms him slowly from the inside out.

When Magnus slides a mug of tea across the counter to him, Alec accepts it for the dove of peace it is. They settle at the table, Alec at the end, Magnus on his left.

Maybe it's that sense of the ordinary that makes Alec venture, "You were serious. You _are_ serious. About, uh, the partnership thing."

"Marriage. No such thing as civil partnership anymore, it's marriage for everyone now." Magnus smiles over the rim of his mug. "Three cheers for equal rights."

"Okay," Alec says, "it's a big word to drop in a conversation, though."

"Your problem is about the same size." Breaking his airy facade, Magnus leans in. "If your parents won't pay, immigration will yank your visa. You can start looking for a job, but can you find a decent one on a BA?"

Alec bites his lip. Right, then. Magnus has swept him up in this nonsense now. "And you think the solution is a fake marriage. Like they won't deport me in a hot second if they find out about _that_."

"Alexander." Magnus likes to use Alec's full name to make a point, but there is a rougher echo to it now. "The only thing we need to do is make sure they don't find out. I'm not suggesting this as a forever solution. But think about it." His demeanor smooths out again. "We have a history. We already live together. All our friends know we're close. Between us, here, nothing has to change. When you're done with your degree, we'll grow apart, get a divorce, go our ways into the rest of our lives with a few fond memories."

"What about _yours?_ " Alec gets out. "Look, I'm not saying I'm not flattered, but are you gonna put your life on hold for a couple of years for my sake?"

"I have at least two years left on the dissertation. I wasn't planning to move out until then."

When Magnus put it like that, it sounds so _reasonable._ Like a simple extension of their current arrangement.

"Fine. Let's pretend this is, like, a real thing." Alec takes a swallow of his tea to wet his mouth. "If we actually did this thing—" If he's even entertaining the idea, he has to be able to use the word. "If we _got married_ , that would mean more than some rings and a convincing 'I do'. It'd mean we'd put our finances together. I can get some kind of job, but..."

"You'll get a scholarship, Alec. I've seen all your essays, remember? They should be breaking down the door to get you in the MA program."

"Not the one from today," Alec mumbles against his palm. "If you're so sure I'll manage, why are you so set on this?"

"It's a precaution." Magnus looks away for a lingering second. "A guarantee that if things go pear-shaped, you'll have somewhere to land. I can give you that. It's not a hardship."

"Wait. You're not doing this out of some self-sacrificing impulse because you kissed me, right?" Alec sits up straight. "You totally are."

"I do bear some responsibility for this, no?" Magnus gestures between them. "We're both adults. The—the kiss doesn't matter. Your future matters. We like each other. I want to think we trust each other."

"Yeah, of course. No question." They don't tend to talk about it, but if Alec had to list the people he could count on in a crisis, Magnus would have the top spot. "Also, we'd have to lie. Even to our friends."

"Half of whom privately wonder why we're not boning already," Magnus deadpans.

Alec twists between indignation and laughter. "Our friends don't care about our sex lives that much, Magnus. Even when Clary's on her fifth froofy drink telling us we look good together."

He only has to close his eyes for the image of the kiss to burn itself onto his eyelids again. How can something he doesn't even remember feel so vivid, so he can almost feel a tug of heat deep in himself, just imagining it?

"That's something we'd have to talk about, of course," Magnus says quietly. "Displays of physical affection. We both have boundaries. I already compromised yours."

Those are careful, clinical words. Magnus is not as blasé about this as he tries to pretend. Still, it says something that he can turn from levity to sobriety and back again on a dime. He's comfortable here, with Alec.

Alec doesn't think he himself has ever been as comfortable anywhere as in this apartment.

"I don't think you did," he says, trying for the same blithe tone Magnus used to such effect. "There was hard evidence I was pretty into it. At least while wasted."

"Aww," Magnus says, "and also, ouch."

Alec raises a brow to wordlessly point out that Magnus brought that one on himself. The message goes through, since Magnus chuckles wryly. "It's pretty late. I should let you sleep on this."

"Okay." It comes out in a whisper. "Good night, then, I guess."

Magnus stands, tousling Alec's hair as he does, like he sometimes will. Generally Alec tolerates it with good humor. This time, Magnus's fingertips slide down to the nape of his neck, then fall away, and Alec holds himself still so he doesn't, in a move of total absurdity, lean after them.

"Good night," Magnus says. "Breakfast tomorrow? I have a class at noon."

"Sure." Alec smiles, though there is a crack through it, and Magnus's eyes cinch in answer before he goes.

Alec sits in the kitchen until Magnus has gathered his things from the living room and retreated, with the yawning cat, into his bedroom. His thoughts still move at a slow churn. Magnus. The kiss. His mother laying down the only law she knows. His own panic that seems to have abated, however weird that is. The twilight wraps around him like a worn, beloved blanket as he steals upstairs through the darkened apartment.

He gets under the covers in the slight chill of his bedroom and, to his great surprise, falls asleep almost at once.

*

The next morning, there is no dawn serenade of Oasis from downstairs. Alec sleeps until the Chairman slips through his door, which has never closed very tight, and puts his pointed little feet on Alec's spine. Alec lets the cat lounge on his pillow and scratches him behind the ear, letting his waking thoughts find their shape.

His mother didn't call. That doesn't mean Alec is off any hooks whatsoever. Izzy has texted again; Alec sends back: _I've got it under control, Iz. I'll call you today. I love you._

He shoos the cat to the floor, finds some clothes, and pauses at the top of the stairs. The gentle clatter of dishes from the kitchen signals Magnus making good on his promises of breakfast.

All his life, Alec has kept his head down and fallen in line. The one thing he's ever asked of his parents was to study the subject of his choosing. It's not a hot-shot career choice, but it is what he loves. These three-and-chance years to the BA have confirmed that.

Still, he's let himself stay under his family's wing. Relied on them for money. Gone home on every holiday so they can make sure he's still the dutiful son he's always been.

Magnus's idea is, in so many words, unhinged. It makes Alec feel sort of tipsy and wild, tilting without falling—not unlike the idea of kissing Magnus, though he slides wilfully past that connection. It's more red tape. It's more of putting his trust in other people. He wants to think that this time, the person has earned that trust.

Magnus turns on his heel as Alec stops in the kitchen doorway, surrounded by a waft of eggs and spices and freshly peeled oranges. Somebody's had too much energy this morning, but Alec is not complaining.

"Good morning," Magnus says. "There's coffee in just a minute."

Alec inhales, and it's the easiest breath he's taken in days. "Yes. I will."

Magnus cants an eyebrow. But he has stopped to look at Alec, with clear-eyed, intense attention.

Alec steps closer. "I slept on it, like you said, and the answer's yes. I'll marry you."

A light gleams in Magnus's eyes, a warm, defiant spark. "Then you should sit down. We have a lot to talk about." 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title: Oasis — "(What's the Story) Morning Glory"


	2. Catch the Wheel (That Breaks the Butterfly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in two days in between intense work, and the next chapter will most likely be posted somewhere past the holidays. I hope you enjoy this in the meantime!
> 
>  **P.S.** Please continue to heed the content notes in the first chapter. The bad parenting is still present.

The first person Alec calls is Jace.

This is not a foregone conclusion; Izzy is the sibling he talks to most often. She spills her joys and sorrows to him, and being on different continents has hardly put a notch in their long talks at weird hours. The sticking point is that she still lives at home, going to college in the same city where their mother runs her business. That puts her too close to the heart of Alec's current trouble.

Jace, however, flew the nest the same year Alec moved across the ocean. He had an inheritance from his birth parents, held in trust, and he used it to make his own way. Moved cities and got a job. Now Alec understands his adoptive brother's choice in a way he maybe did not yesterday morning. Maryse and Robert have nothing to dangle over Jace anymore, no strings to attach to their care and protection.

Alec is certain his parents love him, too, in their own definition. That has never been the issue.

Jace appears in the video call window, tousled from a post-run shower, and keeps his expression in check as Alec stumbles through the first sentences of his news.

_I'm not coming back to visit this summer. I'm staying here. And, uh, there's another thing._

_Long story short, I'm getting married._ He puts it into words for somebody else, and it still doesn't feel real.

A frown cracks Jace's facade. The silence ebbs and flows.

"Alec," Jace says at last, his tone strung between worry and witticism. "Dude, buddy, brother of mine. Before you say another word, just tell me you haven't joined a cult."

Alec props an elbow on his desk, sliding down in his own window. "I haven't joined a cult. No blackmail, no shady deals with crime bosses. It's _Magnus._ I'm just... taking a step forward in a relationship."

In the barest technical sense, that is a fact. It's not like Magnus is some total stranger who blew in to sweep Alec off his feet with promises too good to be true. He made an offer of some security in a situation where Alec has very little.

"Last time I checked, the only thing you were even seeing was a list of coursework the length of my arm," Jace says. "Two weeks later, you're getting hitched. You, the guy who can't get drunk without a five-point plan to optimize your alcohol consumption."

Alec flings the phone onto his bed, treating Jace to a view of the ceiling, and falls after it himself. "Mom cut off my allowance. So we're gonna speed things up. To cover some bases."

"Fuck." Jace jabs the single syllable into being. "You could've _started_ with that. I know you like your privacy, but context, buddy, context."

"I thought you knew."

"Izzy told me about the—incident." Jace tests the emphasis. "Figures that there's years of half-naked pictures of me across the internet, and the second you kiss one guy in front of a camera, Mom loses it."

"Your state of undress is strictly straight. All the difference in the world. Plus, you didn't crush her dreams of sending you to law school."

"We're not exactly simpatico at the moment, Mom and me."

"I know," Alec says, "which is why I'm telling you the truth. I don't know how much I should tell Izzy. She doesn't seem to know Mom cut off my money. She's gonna fly into a righteous rage for me and get herself kicked out of the house."

"You've got to tell her something." Jace starts to clatter around in his kitchen. It's past dinnertime in his corner of the world. "She thought this whole thing was her fault."

"Because she follows Simon, who used to follow this asshole who posted the thing, and Mom still hasn't stopped snooping through her phone. A fucking algorithm did the rest." Alec sighs. He uncovered the chain reaction of unfortunate events after the fact. It changes nothing.

At least today he has a thread of hope.

"Mom and Dad hardly talk about you as it is, Alec," Jace says reasonably. "Their eldest son, the receptable of their hopes and dreams, is gay. They're gonna try and forget they ever saw that kiss. But Izzy deserves to know what's going on with you."

"I just—" Alec can hear himself dithering. "I don't want Izzy to rock the boat. I want her to get her degree and get the fuck out. I've been hiding from them for years, and it never really hit me how screwed up it all was. How much I—all of us—have pretended for them. Does that make me slow, or just an idiot?"

"I don't know, man." Jace makes the little scoff he uses to self-deprecate, but it is a general comment on their family dynamics now. "You always fell in line. Covered for us. I think for you, that was protection. You picked your battles, and Mom mistook that for actual compliance."

A soft hiccup escapes Alec. Hearing his brother characterize him with poignant accuracy shouldn't be the stone that starts the landslide, but he has taken in a lot in the last two days. The kiss and its public display. His mother telling him in no uncertain terms how far she'll go to keep the family image undinted. Magnus's guilt-tinted kindness, and the fact that Alec actually means to take him up on his offer.

"Well," Alec says, aiming for dry detachment, "I'm about to wreck that assumption beyond repair."

"It's a creative solution, I'll give you that." It seems Alec didn't quite hit the mark, but Jace is indulging him. "Magnus seems like an okay guy. The baseline being that there's no man on the planet that's actually good enough for you."

"So I should live my life in sacred solitude because I _might_ pick somebody less than perfect?" Alec fires back. "What happened to that yoga instructor you were seeing, Kay—Kae-something?"

"She poured a tequila shot all over my shirt." Jace's tone is light. Dishes clink in the background. "It wasn't serious, anyway. At least you didn't pick your prospective husband off a dance floor at last call."

Husband. Alec's stomach twists, not unpleasantly, at that word. He spent the morning in the kitchen with Magnus, going over the practicalities of this bold plan to foil his parents. Magnus had done his homework: investigated every form, certificate, and legal box they'll have to check.

In that flurry of information, Alec almost forgot that what is a practical arrangement to him and Magnus will have to look genuine to everybody else. Even Jace and Izzy, no matter how much it rankles Alec.

He is an adult. His parents have no power over him, except for the invisible threads of lifelong influence that still drag on him when he least expects it. He needs to be his own person. Stand on his own. Choose who to rely on.

"Can I tell Magnus you approve?" he asks then. "I _am_ basically eloping, but you're like the one family member he _could_ ask."

"Then tell him to ask, you asshole," Jace says. "If he doesn't have my number, give it to him. And call Izzy. Tell her you're gonna be okay. She can keep a secret."

Folding his fretful hands over his stomach, Alec exhales. He and Jace are hardly carved from the same tree; where Alec is a deep thinker, reclusive and maybe more inclined to books than people, Jace has always dared the world to face him head-on. Still, Maryse used to say that when they got it in their heads to be stubborn, they were equally intractable.

Alec needs that kind of resolve now.

"I guess you should get to interview my prospective husband," he says. "That seems fair."

"Considering I didn't know he was your _boyfriend_ , this is me letting you off easy."

"Yeah." Alec masks a cough into the back of his hand. "Sorry I had to tell you like this. It's not ideal, but what about this is?"

"Not to take away from your moment, but me getting to heat up dinner, that'd be pretty nice." Jace has clearly tucked his phone between ear and shoulder. "If your situation is under control."

Alec reads the acceptance of his apology in that. "It is. I'll talk to you soon, yeah?"

"Mm-hm. 'Night. Stay in one piece."

"You're telling _me,_ " Alec huffs, fondly, and lets Jace chuckle into the connection before ending the call.

Silence swaddles the apartment. Magnus is out with Catarina and Ragnor; if some drinks for nerves are involved, Alec wouldn't be surprised. The last forty-eight hours have been a whirlwind. He wrote today off as a loss for any kind of schoolwork. He's run all the damage control he can: secured what funds he has left, sent requests for the paperwork he needs.

That is most of what marriage seems to involve: bureaucracy. Written proof from his domestic authorities that he is single, in hard copy, which will take its sweet time in the mail. An application for a marriage certificate, which Magnus printed and set neatly on the windowsill. Alec hasn't dared to look at it yet.

He might be a bit blessed that Jace has always taken him in his stride. To an outside observer, they have little in common, but there's a core of understanding between them that Alec doesn't think he has with another person alive. When his parents took Jace in, Alec was the first to reach out to him. The loyalty that grew between them has stayed the same into adulthood.

That's one loved one off Alec's list. He texted Maia to thank her for her intervention with Griffin, and to offer to call her back. She reported she was off on a field trip, which probably involves damp boat voyages and counting seabirds at a research station off the coast, but she'd see him next week.

There is one more person that—as Jace just reminded Alec—needs to hear his news straight from the source. It's always his first instinct to protect Izzy. At three years younger, she's never stopped being his baby sister.

Now he needs to lie to her, too. She has a sharper sense for when he is skirting the truth than Jace. She's kept up a minor bombardment of messages throughout the day while Alec's wrestled with himself.

He tries to console himself with that the only _essential_ lie is what, exactly, Magnus means to him. That this close friend Alec regularly talks about has, in fact, become closer still. That should be doable.

From a certain angle, it's also protection. A way to keep himself safe. And if he takes the crown of the family disappointment and sticks it firmly on his own head, maybe Izzy can breathe easier for the time she still lives at home.

Alec grabs his phone, smears his hand across his eyes, and calls his sister.

Izzy only shouts at him twice: once for calling Jace first, and the second time at the phrase _I'm getting married,_ for which she must be excused. It seems to fit in his mouth better that time.

She tries to apologize. He stops her halfway through the sentence, then swears her to silence. He can't have their parents catching wind of his plans before they're signed and sealed. A little mellowed, she agrees, though he can hear the defiant undercurrent in her voice. If he asked, she'd march right up to their mother and challenge her on his behalf.

Right now, that is the one thing Alec needs her not to do. He emphasizes this until she relents with minimal grace. They meander on to more normal topics from there.

He is still talking in hushed tones, Izzy going on about her latest project for class, when Magnus comes in. The rustle of the cat darting to the door and the murmur of Magnus's voice lift the silence, as if the apartment had shifted into a more agreeable position.

Alec whispers his goodnights to Izzy, and then lies still, listening to Magnus moving about downstairs. Somewhere between his own exhaustion and a sneaking sense of comfort, he falls asleep.

*

Winter clings to the city with its last spiteful efforts as Alec and Maia duck out of the dojo doors, each bundled up to their ears. Maia swears as the wind snags her hood off, spilling her hair out to be soaked by the driven snow. Snapping his umbrella open, Alec does his best to hold it at an effective angle while she fights her hood back into place.

"Still gonna bike home?" he asks. "It's past rush hour, you could probably bring it on the tram."

"Or you could walk with me—sorry, _slog_ with me in solidarity." She casts a glance at the street, where wet snow is clumping on awnings and the sills of display windows and dripping from the eaves. The afternoon traffic has plowed deep ruts into the drifts forming on the lanes. If the cold snap persists, night will turn everything icy and crisp; if not, black and sodden.

Alec casts a glance at Maia in turn. She shrugs one shoulder. "The tram it is. You wanted to talk about something, anyway?"

"Yeah." The lights of the tram approaching in the distance buy him another minute to work up to it. "Let's get on first."

They squeeze into the carriage, backpacks and bike and all, and huddle into the luggage area so Maia can keep an eye on her conveyance. Today's practice left Alec with loose limbs and a low, comfortable brim of energy, so he isn't going to find an easier moment for this topic.

Maia was out of town for her marine ecosystems course for the last week. Alec ended up giving her the scandalous matrimonial news in a phone call that cut off three times due to the weather at sea. The dust has settled a little since then. Magnus told the rest of their friends, and mostly handled that round of shocked-confused-delighted responses.

Alec has gone no contact with his parents. In an act of rebellion, Izzy got a burner phone and hid it in her gym locker for communication purposes. In a matter-of-fact riposte to Alec, their mother froze him out of any accounts she had access to. He is achingly grateful for Magnus, whose first concern on that fact-filled morning was, _Have you moved your money? If your mother really plans to play hardball, that's where she'll start._

He can't think about that too much. The lurching panic is still too near. He has enough to stress about even without dwelling on the wholesale disaster of his family situation.

The application results for the coveted Master's in museum and gallery studies will come this week. It's hard not to treat every ping signaling a new email as a potential knell of doom.

The intensity of Maia's gaze is climbing from pointed interest to pithy demand. Alec wrenches himself back to the matter at hand.

"Here's the thing," he begins. "The wedding thing, as it were."

"Which still is the _wildest_ thing I've ever heard out of your mouth. Just for the record." She jams her elbow against the sleety window. "As in, I've known both of you for years, and sometimes Magnus used to look at you kinda doe-eyed, but then it'd pass, so I figured it was nothing. So, congrats on the stealth dating."

 _Huh,_ goes a small, surprised part of Alec's brain at the implication that Magnus might have... had a thing for him. There seem to be periods in which Magnus changes crushes like most people change their sheets, so mooning glances are a pretty thin body of proof. Alec is fairly sure Magnus has hooked up with Cat once, too, and she's one of his two dearest friends.

Alec knows what it means when _his_ eyes tarry on somebody. He can look for a long time before making a move—so long that it's cost him more than one opportunity. In this, he and Magnus seem to be polar opposites.

The evidence is inconclusive in every way. Better shelve it for later—or never.

"We—we didn't want to make any noises about it yet," he says to Maia. "It's a pretty new thing. You know, once news hits Clary, half the campus is gonna know."

"That has its upsides. When things imploded between me and you-know-who, somehow his name started appearing on the shit lists of discerning girls in three faculties." Maia waves her hand, a bit too dismissive. Her last relationship is still a sore subject, but she loathes nothing like being handled with kid gloves. "I get your point, though."

"Fray uses her powers mostly for good, it's not that." Alec offers a slanted smile. "It's more about me, I guess, and being attached to my privacy. Also, dating your housemate could be kind of risky. We wanted to be sure."

He doesn't even sound rehearsed. Every half-truth he lays down for Maia rolls smoothly off his tongue.

"Only then your parents cocked it up for you." Her grimace is laced with empathy. As far as Alec knows, her own aren't likely to win any awards for good influence and gentle guidance for the twisting roads of life, either.

"I'm trying not to think about them." The tram heaves into another stop. Maia's bike knocks into Alec's hip, and he braces it more tightly between himself and the wall of the carriage.

"So," he goes on, "the wedding. By which I mean an exchange of vows at City Hall. No fixed date yet, since we don't know when I'll get my 'this man is allowed to marry, official stamp of approval here' paper."

"I'll clear my calendar. On three conditions." She raises three gloved fingers and ticks them off one by one. "You'll have alcohol. I won't be required to serve it. I get to bring Gretel as my plus one."

"Yes, yes, and yes. Of course. We thought we'd have a party after the fact, since we'll have to do this fast." Alec folds his hands together, lets his fingers slide through each other. The nerves prickling in him are the good kind, this time. "I had another question."

Maia arches a brow, but softly. She's perfected many gradations of the gesture.

"You're the best friend I have here," he says. "I... wanted to ask you to be my best man. Best woman. Whichever you like. Since this is kind of a shotgun wedding, there's no need for any bells and whistles, but I need somebody to witness for me. I can't think of anybody I'd rather have there."

"You're serious." Maia sits down on the bench that holds their backpacks. The four other people on the tram are swaying along, oblivious to them. "You want me to... be your second."

"I'd rather not have anybody stabbed on my wedding day." Alec hums in his throat. "But you're like this pillar of sanity for me. Is that corny? That I think if I freak out, you won't hesitate to screw my head on straight."

"Yeah, Lightwood, it's corny." She slaps a tender hand against his arm. "You fucking sap. Yes, I'll fight for your honor. Yes, I'll witness you. I might even bartend at your actual party if it comes to that."

Then her head is at his shoulder and her arms around him in a tight, hard hug, the only kind he's ever seen her give, an embrace like a punch. He clasps her close for as long as she lets him. "Thanks, Roberts. I'll try not to make you regret that last one."

*

The days creep on toward the weekend, and Alec's inbox fills with course chatter and other everyday odds and ends. The acceptance-slash-rejection letter for the MA program remains gloriously absent. His whole future is balanced on that yet unwritten message.

He finishes a term paper and tries to focus on the reading for an independent study unit. He goes on a run with Maia. He sinks an afternoon into cleaning the kitchen cabinets while Magnus wanders between the kitchen and his bedroom, reading excerpts from an article that goes too deep into linguistic theory for Alec to entirely keep up.

"I have no fucking clue what this author is saying, either." Magnus sprawls melodramatically across the table among the expired dry goods. "I don't think I'm smart enough for this."

Alec is used to these episodes of operatic self-doubt; most commonly, they happen when Magnus is about to turn in a dissertation chapter to his advisor. "You're brilliant, _and_ you're running on four hours of sleep. Take a nap. Somewhere not on the table."

"Mmngh," says his brilliant housemate, fluent in five languages, and slumps onto the couch. When Alec gets back from a grocery trip to replenish their stores, Magnus is still sleeping, the Chairman wedged between his head and the armrest.

Alec lays the throw blanket over them both and goes to put things away as quietly as he can.

The good news is, Alec supposes, that Magnus was right. They've lived in this tentative new reality for more than two weeks, and between them, nothing has changed.

In theory, some things are different. Magnus has a double bed, the left side of which is now nominally Alec's. Alec's bedroom serves as a guest room and study, and their things have been somewhat rearranged to support the fiction that they share Magnus's room.

In practice, Alec still sleeps in his own bed. His books are on the shelves in the reading nook upstairs and his toothbrush to the left of the sink. Magnus feeds the Chairman and Alec takes the cat on tiny walks in the snow-dappled backyard.

Nothing has changed. Even his own state of uncertainty persists.

"I do appreciate your efforts," Magnus says on Friday, as he finds Alec casting appraising looks at the bathroom, "but don't you think the housework is getting a little obsessive? This apartment has two doors."

"I went outside today," Alec counters. "To the library."

"For more books you can leave all around the place, and then put away, and spread around again."

"The cycle of life." The bathroom is probably fine. The tiles look pretty scrubbed. Alec steps away, leaning against the side of the door. "I don't get why they didn't just give us an exact time and date for the results. 'This week' is some faculty of arts nonsense."

"They have to wait on their muse, Alexander," Magnus says, inexcusably merry. "Sometimes I really think you're an accountant in devious disguise as an arts major."

"Shut up. Don't you have work?"

"Finished early." Reaching into the overfull coat rack, Magnus lobs a wadded-up scarf at Alec. He catches it with a lifted brow. "Put on your coat. There's somewhere I've been meaning to take you."

Alec wraps the scarf—one of Magnus's, burgundy and gray—around his neck. When Magnus gets like this, it's best to go along in good humor.

The old town hangs suspended in a sliver of perfect late-winter stillness. Snow marbles the cobblestones, and the moisture in the air is just freezing, so that each street lamp bears a shimmering halo. A church bell sounds out the full hour, soon joined by another hollow report from the next steeple. They roam past restaurants and boutique windows and street stalls both darkened and lit.

Magnus watches the windows with idle curiosity. Alec watches Magnus, the swing of his arms against his dark wool coat, and finds himself distracted by Magnus's hand.

They walk like they usually do, casually close but not with shoulders brushing. This is a liberal part of a fairly broad-minded city; if they were in love, Alec could take Magnus's hand, put a palm on his back, tell the passersby that he has intentions toward this man.

If they were in love. That is not the case. Not that Alec doesn't love Magnus—he does, in the same way he loves Maia, though almost never to her face, or even Jace, who doesn't always _get_ Alec but can't be dislodged from Alec's corner.

It's an _I got your back_ kind of love, not an _I get to hold your hand_ kind. Alec stuffs his hands as deep in his pockets as they will go.

"Cold?" Magnus says. "We're almost there."

" 'M fine." Alec clears his throat. "Where are we going, exactly?"

"Fair warning: I'm going to take your mind off one concern by giving it another. I promise this one's benevolent."

"Great. Thanks for the variety, anyway." Alec trails Magnus around one of the hairpin turns the old streets like to make, and at the sight of the shop signs, things click together. "Jeweler's Lane. Real subtle, Bane."

A step ahead, Magnus cants his head back at Alec. "I didn't want to make a big thing out of it. But if I'm going to wed you, I insist on proper rings. Within our budget, of course."

He holds out his left hand, the one Alec was absolutely not staring at a minute ago. The rings already on his fingers, silver and steel, are gilded by the cold yellow of the street lamps.

"Right." Alec slots his own chilled hand into Magnus's. Their fingers fold together without a hitch. Magnus's thumb traces the pen calluses on the side of Alec's forefinger, and Alec swallows his heart back down as the small touch seems to ripple up his whole arm.

Magnus is not looking at him. He's eyeing their linked hands with apparent scrutiny. "Yeah. I think it works."

Alec lets Magnus pull him forward.

*

An hour or so later, they exit the second shop they entered, their purchases tucked in Alec's pocket. He inhales the gusty air like it could brace him. Magnus steers him gently off the front steps. "It's over. You can lose the haunted look."

" _Haunted_ is an overstatement," Alec argues at once. "I'm just. I hardly wear any of this stuff. You're the one with the byzantine personal effects. It was kind of a lot."

It's not the aggressively radiant salespeople or even the need to awkwardly insinuate that he couldn't _afford_ most of the selection that put him on edge. Nor, really, the congratulations that bubbled up as soon as Magnus said _wedding rings_ in that impeccable, urbane tone that seems to get him everywhere.

Magnus was all courtesy, implicitly on Alec's side every step of the way. It left Alec with the quiet, stinging conviction that Magnus deserves so much better. Somebody who doesn't have to weigh price tags against next month's rent, somebody who'd marry him out of desire and true devotion rather than—this. This weird, twisted necessity. This mutual scheme of theirs.

Two years, Alec tells himself. Until then, he'll have to do as right by Magnus as he can. A fake marriage doesn't mean he can't be a good not-partner.

"You wanna go somewhere for a bit?" He has to shake off these doubts. They've committed to the ruse. "I don't feel like going home yet."

"That's the spirit," Magnus says. "Oh, and give me your phone."

"Okay?"

"You keep checking it when you think I'm not looking. If we're going for a Friday drink, academic anxiety doesn't get a seat at the table."

"Like we won't spend half the night talking about Chomsky. Again."

"Oh no. Dr. Chomsky is uninvited." Magnus sketches out a shooing motion. "So is every French asshole who ever opined on the nature of language. I'm done for the week."

Sighing, Alec hands him the phone. He's already resigned himself to waiting all weekend. He gropes for a change of subject. "Can we talk about something else? We skimmed it earlier, but to be sure."

Magnus gives a noise of generic agreement. They take a course toward one of their usual haunts.

"So," Alec says. "Do we hold hands in public now? Should I kiss you on the cheek so random sales clerks can force an _awww_ at how cute we are?"

"If you want to." Magnus tilts a cheek up coyly, but shakes his head then. "No. I think we should pretend as little as possible. You're not big on public displays; I can live with that."

"I think..." Alec ponders for a moment. "If we're in, you know, safe company, then I don't mind if you take my hand, or sit on my knee— _don't_ make that face, I'm _serious._ This matters. Even if you sat on my lap for half of the Nerd Cave housewarming party."

"One quarter, at most. We really should get Simon and Clary some chairs for their birthdays." Magnus glances left and right, then scampers over the single-lane street. Alec follows faithfully. "What about hugs?"

"Totally fine." That one is thankfully easy, and still it quickens Alec's heartbeat. Onward, now. "And... you can kiss me on the cheek. That's okay. Obviously, there's the public one on the day itself, but we'll manage, right?"

Magnus nods, pensive. "Depending on the day, we might just have us and Maia and Catarina there. Cat is still a bit shocked over the whole thing, but she's coming around. She's always liked you, so that helps."

"Hmm?" Worry scrunches Alec's brows. "Are you two okay?"

"We've known each other a long time," Magnus says. "This is not _like_ me, and she knows that. She's used to being the no-nonsense friend who needs to drag me away from horrible romantic choices. I had to reassure her this was anything but."

Alec chortles, hushed, surprising himself. "I'm glad you have her." As Alec has his brother and sister, so Magnus has Ragnor and Catarina. Magnus is an only child, left by both of his parents one way or another, but he's made a family for himself. In some way, Alec is about to join it.

At least he is pretending to join it.

Before he can mull over that bleak thought in any more detail, his phone chimes in Magnus's pocket. That's his email alert. Alec jumps to attention.

As he makes a _give me_ gesture, Magnus is already shoving the phone in his hand. If Magnus made light of Alec's jittering earlier, now he crowds breathlessly beside Alec's shoulder. Shutting his eyes, Alec takes a second to feel the reality of Magnus's closeness, the phantom heat of his body through layers of coats and sweaters.

He's worked his ass off for this moment. It's been his driving goal for the last three years. At least he is in the best company in which to receive the news, whichever it is.

He taps through to the message before he just chucks the phone in the nearest gutter and never looks back.

Emotion chokes him, the kind that takes you like a blow in the gut. He makes a disbelieving sound that doesn't quite grow into a laugh.

" 'Dear Applicant,'—I like it, very warm and personal," Magnus reads over his shoulder, " 'we are pleased to inform you that you've been accepted into the Museum and Gallery Studies'—you did it, you glorious nerd, I _told you_ so!"

The laughter finally comes, an opened valve for the rush of relief and gladness and half a dozen other close cousins. Alec scoops Magnus into a crushing hug and laughs against his shoulder as they sway around each other on the sidewalk. Magnus narrowly saves the phone from slipping Alec's grip, as Alec is a bit busy holding on to him.

"You told me so," Alec mutters. "You get to hold _that_ one over my head forever. That's fine."

"Alec," Magnus says, half against his ear, "there's more." He maneuvers the phone so they can both look at it without breaking the hug.

A second email blinks in the inbox view, from the same university account. It is addressed directly to him.

"Holy shit," Alec says, very softly.

"That's it," Magnus says, a tinge of awe in his own voice. "I'm alerting the rest of the crew. That is, if you want. Just feels like a moment in which we shouldn't drink alone."

"I—" Alec nods. "You should. I mean, yes, I want them there. Anybody that miraculously has no Friday night plans, anyway."

"And what student party will compare to the fact that you, Mr. Lightwood, got into the toughest-to-crack liberal arts program in the country _and_ got a partial scholarship?"

"It only covers tuition," Alec has to point out. At Magnus's kindly scowl, he shakes his head. "It _covers tuition,_ Magnus. That's half the battle won. God. We might just do this."

" _We,_ is it?" Magnus slides his hand into Alec's again, like looping a rope into a mooring ring. "Let's go toast your success. And my good fortune with the damn dissertation chapter."

Alec can allow himself tonight. There's so much to be done, but right now, he can let himself be safe and happy, surrounded by people he's chosen for himself.

"Yeah," he says. "Let's."

They go, hand in hand, skidding over the rimy cobblestones.

*

The Day, as it's come to be known under Magnus and Alec's roof, dawns at the end of March. An hour from the moment the mail slot finally coughs Alec's paperwork onto the doormat, Magnus is on the phone to find them a wedding date—or, for the less romantically inclined, a registration date.

Alec cannot casually hunt for a job unrelated to his studies until they're married. The deadline for his visa application is slithering closer. His placement in the MA program won't be enough to secure a renewal, unless he also has a steady source of income. Simon already told him he should take fifteen minutes per day to stew in his worries, then set them aside.

There's probably wisdom in that. Alec finds most of his tentative calm in karate practice with Maia, or running along the riverside as it stirs to a wind-gnarled spring.

The morning of the Day, they eat a hasty breakfast, make plans to have lunch with Cat and Maia after the formalities, and all is going well, until Alec snaps open his lone jewelry box and finds one of his cufflinks missing.

It shouldn't be a big deal. There's barely a dress code at City Hall. Alec could go in jeans and a tidy sweater, but Magnus would never. Alec is not one tenth as flashy, but at least he can be proper.

He has to do this right. Even when he is not totally sure what _right_ means.

It does involve the understated silver cufflinks Izzy sent him for his birthday. They're the best he has, the only pair that is any fancier, and now one of them has vanished into thin air.

"Magnus?" Alec calls from the bottom of the stairs. "I'm sorry, I can't find my—can I borrow a cufflink? Or two, for preference."

As soon as he opens his mouth, he feels foolish. Whenever he falters or misses a step, Magnus seems to be there with a solution. Magnus has also disappeared into the bathroom and won't emerge until his face is done, which crucial phase Alec is rudely interrupting.

"Black velvet box, top drawer," comes Magnus's voice. Then, after a beat, "Right-hand side, not left! Not that I'm stopping you from exploring, but maybe another time."

Armed with this cryptic counsel, Alec goes into the downstairs bedroom. On the bed, the Chairman has dug himself into the groove between the pillows—one dented where Magnus slept, the other plump and untouched—and curled into a circle.

"You poor little fucker," Alec says to the cat. "This is so much sound and fury over a small thing, yeah?"

The cat twitches his tail, then burrows under Magnus's pillow. Alec can relate.

Right-hand side. Top drawer. Alec spares a thought to wondering what is so damning on the other side that Magnus had to warn against it, but he dutifully opens the correct drawer.

Magnus has a small pile of beautiful cufflinks, most of them too gaudy for Alec. They go excellently on Magnus, with his eye for bold styles and uncanny combinations. At semi-random, Alec selects a pair with a subtle engraving of a spray of arrows in the silver. It only shows when he aligns the image to the light.

"That's a good pick." Magnus has appeared in the doorway.

If Alec is all in shades of gray and black, Magnus is dashed with dark jewel tones, the emerald in his hair, the blue of his eyeshadow repeated in the tiny indigo gemstones in his ear cuff. His collar is sedate today, the pine-hued cravat precisely tied. Alec doesn't even know which year or season of fashion to place him in: he simply looks like himself, a touch eerie, a touch dapper, very much breathtaking.

"I could say the same of you." Alec's voice catches. "Only, it's your everything."

Magnus blinks slowly, licks his lip, then seems to focus. "Can I?" He steps over to Alec and slips the cufflinks deftly into place. "The arrows of St. Ursula. Patron saint of archers—and students, if I'm not mistaken."

"I thought we weren't gonna bring religion into this." Alec is relieved for the banter. He can't seem to stop watching Magnus's hands.

"I wouldn't go so far. Surely there's room for some historical curiosities. Isn't that your whole thing?"

"The same way your whole _thing_ is about dictionaries," Alec huffs. There is a soft, electrifying hum building at the base of his spine. It's like everything up to this moment has been an abstraction.

He can walk up to a registrar and state that he'll marry this man. He can say it in front of others to witness it. He can sign his name and make it real in the letter of some law.

None of that encompasses the way Magnus laughs and moves, the way the sunlight sheens his hair, the way his mind picks through obscure facts and presents them with joy. Magnus fits into Alec's life in many ways he already knew, but suddenly that feels like a bare beginning. Like they're only just past the prologue. Like there are still unnumbered pages to be filled.

Two years, Alec reminds himself. That is the private agreement they made.

He touches his knuckles under Magnus's chin, lightly, a question. Magnus turns his head up, the motion mirroring Alec's hesitant care.

"Can I," Alec says, because this is the last safe moment to ask, "can we try this out? Just the once?"

He knows he's kissed Magnus before. It kicked off this entire precarious effort. It was a wild, drunken kiss, done in the dark, driven by more than one bad idea. As a point of reference, it's lost to him.

Magnus lays a hand against Alec's shoulder and, as simple as that, kisses him. Close-mouthed, all but chaste, edged with warmth. The strange mixes with the familiar: the hint of Magnus's cologne, the hitch in his breath, the fit of his mouth on Alec's. Their lips part slowly and meet again and this time, cling for the barest moment.

Alec draws it all in, tries to stamp it in his memory, before breaking the second kiss. Both their hands fall; he watches Magnus's fingers flex into half-fists and loosen again.

"Will that do for dress rehearsal?" Magnus sounds a little hoarse.

Movement in the window jars Alec out of the lingering mood. "It'll have to. That's Catarina's car outside, and in about twenty seconds, Maia's gonna be at the door."

Magnus sweeps up his suit jacket, slung over the back of his desk chair. "Ready?"

Alec doesn't have to work for the wry laugh; it wells up easy. Maybe he doesn't need to do this right. It's more important to do it in the first place, step by fumbling step, and trust himself to stand again after a fall.

The doorbell rings with some force. Maia suffers neither fools nor slowpokes.

He looks at Magnus. Feels himself steady. "Let's go get married."

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title: Oasis — "Falling Down"


	3. How Does It Feel? (Let’s Say I’m Learning)

In the backseat of Catarina's car, Alec becomes aware that he has a problem.

He tries to steer his eyes to the streets going by, to the bustle of the sunny morning easing into day, but they keep sneaking back to Magnus's left hand, laid in the empty middle seat between them. Magnus sits unmoving, uncommonly so. His hand is decked in rings save for the resting curve of his fourth finger, elegant and enthralling in its bareness.

Magnus has beautiful hands. Check. Alec is subtly losing his mind over them. Also check. What a fine time he picked to be distracted by every single part of Magnus. At least today of all days, he has an excellent excuse for staring.

Alec's epiphany is cut short as Maia finds them a parking spot in the crowded lot. Catarina slides the car into the last sliver of free space at the edge of the canal that guards the back of City Hall.

Back home, alone with Magnus, Alec was calm. Now a jitter climbs up his spine. He quells the urge to dig his thumbnail into the soft underside of another finger.

Maia opens the passenger seat door. Somebody calls out, "There they are!"

There's a group of people across the parking lot. It resolves into several familiar faces.

"Here comes the honor guard." Maia slides out of the car, as impeccable as Magnus in her slinky ankle boots and saffron neck scarf. "Brace yourselves."

Cool, gentle fingers slide under Alec's own, breaking the fist they want to make.

Startled, Alec lifts his eyes to Magnus's face, grips the side of his hand instead. The nerves move through him like a wave passing, up and over and out. Magnus smiles scantly.

"Yeah?" he says. A whole question in a single syllable.

"Yeah," Alec breathes. He can do this. He can.

He gets out to the cacophony of their friends clustering around the car. On the other side, Maia is trying to keep order against Clary and Simon in their usual pincer formation of merry chaos.

"Don't crowd them, guys," she's saying. "Simon, I told you to maybe not bring the guitar."

Magnus laughs as Clary practically pulls him onto his feet. The strap of her camera is slung across her moss-green jacket, the case swinging precariously as she declares, "You can get engaged in secret, that's fine, we understand, but you _are_ gonna have music and wedding photos."

"If you say so, Biscuit." Magnus smiles over her shoulder at Ragnor and Raphael, twin pillars of hands-in-pockets solemnity behind Clary and Simon, who is indeed sporting his sticker-covered guitar case. Catarina joins them, the car doors locking at a wave of her key fob.

"You want us to feature in some dickhead's top ten posts again?" Alec grouses mildly at Clary, who gives him an affronted face right back.

"No, genius. You're getting all the copies. You can paper your walls with them or destroy them with fire, but pictures will happen."

"Children, children," Catarina says. "We have five minutes to spare—"

"—and I am missing a perfectly fascinating lecture on the late Minoan for this, so please, let's step to it." Ragnor crooks his arm and Cat takes it in mid-turn, their long-honed lockstep as effortless as ever.

"The Minoans have waited a few thousand years for you," says Magnus, "they'll wait another week. How often will your dearest friend, your best beloved, get married?"

"I remember a few late-night assertions that the answer to that was _never_." Raphael joins the conversation, dry as a salt flat. "Yet here we are, in the plain light of day."

"Any other day I'd be tempted to ask what your husband-to-be has on you." Ragnor lowers his voice at Magnus. "What happened to our inveterate libertine?"

Magnus makes a face at him. "Alas, one can't be twenty-one and drunk on their own greatness forever."

Alec tries to stop his own face from doing anything untoward. Ragnor must see it, as his generally dour demeanor softens a touch. "I jest, you understand. We're all happy for you two. I simply want to dangle this over his head a little. Magnus Bane, breaker of hearts across the continent, being the first of the old crew to enter into holy matrimony."

"Rather the secular alternative," Magnus puts in.

"Uh, sure." Alec makes a permissive hand motion. "Dangle away."

Raphael and Ragnor are jostling Magnus. Alec knows the three of them well enough to be used to their constant barbs and bons mots. However, now they also drive home that before that fateful conversation where Magnus floated the idea, Alec had never heard Magnus comment on the prospect of any wedded unions.

If made to guess, Alec would've said Magnus is not the marrying type. It hits differently to understand that Magnus consciously resisted the idea. That he told people out loud that he couldn't see himself marry.

This is not real, though. This is a pretense that has to be as ironclad as the one Alec held up for his parents ever since he was fourteen and realized he was not the red-blooded heterosexual they expected him to be.

Magnus isn't doing this because he loves Alec like that. He's doing it because he's a good person, a good friend, and... Magnus would spin a glib ending to Alec's thought, but in the absence of his input, it fades as someone taps Alec on the back.

He's drifted to the front steps alongside the others. Maia is looking up at him, her gaze hard and sincere under the purple slice of her eyeshadow. "If you want to bail, you say the word and I'll smuggle you onto the next boat doing herring research on a remote island. If not, it's time."

This morning keeps testing Alec—and deep down, something in him _wants_ to rise to the occasion. Wants to be worthy, not as a matter of convenience, but as one of principle. He's never known how to do things halfway.

He is committed. There is no other way.

"I'm good." He smiles at Maia. "Thanks for having my back."

"Always." She shoves him kindly in the side. "Go get your man."

As Alec comes up to him, his heart a tattoo against his ribs, Magnus turns on his heel, as if he'd only been waiting. Alec reaches out his hand and Magnus takes it with the same comfort as he did on the old town lane. Alec is tangentially aware of Catarina's watchful look, of Clary muffling an incredulous giggle into Simon's shoulder, but it is Magnus's gaze that catches and holds him.

They can do this.

Flanked by their friends, they climb the broad granite steps.

*

The formal part is short and simple. The soft-voiced registrar officiating for them looks like a favorite aunt Alec never had; she makes them feel welcome even in the character-free meeting room designated for civil unions.

Magnus made a playful threat that he'd write his own vows. He produces no such vows, but his _I do_ is low and clear and makes Alec nearly choke on his own.

They kiss for the third—no, fourth—time with Magnus's fingertips light on Alec's cheeks, Alec clasping the base of his neck. He counts the seconds so he doesn't simply sink into the kiss, tripped by the traitorous part of his brain that _likes_ the idea of kissing Magnus over and over.

He pulls back a little too sharply; that hitch is covered by the ensuing congratulations from their friends. They have enough time left for Simon to play a sweet acoustic rendition of Magnus's favorite alt rock love song, and Alec lets Magnus lean his cheek into his shoulder and listen raptly. Next to them, Clary dabs furtively at her eyes, as even Raphael cracks a reserved smile.

Ragnor peels off with a final squeeze of Magnus's shoulder and another fond insult. Raphael departs next, Simon running after him to catch the same bus at the last minute, while Clary herds the rest of them to the riverfront before her auspicious light conditions are wasted.

Alec knows that the fuss over the photos is how she shows love. With Clary, affection tends to become a production. At least she's clever enough to choose one of Alec and Magnus's frequent haunts: a wrought-iron bench on a wooded lookout hill, among the last remains of the medieval walls that once divided the city.

Alec goes along, if only for the sheer joy Magnus seems to get out of posing dramatically. Taking swift charge of the affair, Clary marches them, Maia and Catarina included, around until the backgrounds and shadows are to her satisfaction. Group shots are followed by ones in pairs: Alec and Maia, Magnus and Catarina, and then the main number of Alec and Magnus from a bewildering amount of angles. 

When she whisks Magnus off to the top of the hill for some final solo pictures, Maia trailing after them, Catarina settles herself on the bench. She has the kind of presence that creates a stillness around her: the world rushes on, but she can always be the eye of any storm.

"Sit." She taps her fingers on the bench. It's not a demand, but Alec leaps to it slightly. Not that a part of him was not expecting this.

"If this is where you give me the shovel talk, I already know," he says. "Magnus is practically your brother. You'd go to war for him."

"I have, and not so metaphorically." Her mouth crooks. "He has told you how we met?"

 _I thought you'd known each other forever_ is not what she wants to hear. Alec tries another morsel Magnus shared once. "I know your family took him in after he and his dad fell out for the last time."

" _Fell out_ is putting it mildly." Now, the only movement on her face is a tension in her jaw. "That last year before we moved out, we were joined at the hip. Because he'd been let down by everyone that was supposed to care for him, and somewhere under that facade he puts up for the world, he was terrified that I would, too. I had to show him otherwise."

Alec has caught hints of Magnus's history over the years, an anecdote here, a midnight confession there. He comes from some degree of wealth and privilege that spat him out when he wouldn't bend to his father's attempts to control his life.

Privately Alec assumed that Magnus's past was one of his reasons for marrying him. He sees in Alec something of his own troubles. Both their parents have tried to shape them in their own image, by any means necessary. Magnus, at least, seems to have broken clean away from his father.

Alec is working on it.

"He's important to me." He tastes the truth in that. "I'll do my best to keep him safe."

"Oh, I know. Under all that historically significant dust, you're the shining armor type." Catarina crosses one knee over the other, her hands folded on top. "We're not strangers, Alec. I like you. I'm not saying any of this to judge you. But Magnus tends to fall hard and fast and without a thought for consequences. Sometimes I think we're still picking up the pieces from last time. The one before you."

Stymied, Alec searches her expression for a clue as to where this is going. "You don't mean those little crushes he gets all the time."

"You sound remarkably calm about that."

"I... trust him?" Alec realizes a second too late that being too nonchalant about Magnus's romantic antics would be damning. "I mean. I have hard evidence that he's committed to this."

He's spared by the rich bubble of her laughter. "I'm teasing. Did you know the tips of your ears go red when you're flustered?"

He instinctively touches one ear, even as Catarina goes on, "I mean Camille Belcourt. She's part of the reason Magnus spent so long going from one fling to the next."

 _Camille._ Has Alec ever heard that name? Somewhere in the rambling catalog of Magnus's exes, most of them barely worth the title. He's being treated to a crash course in the secret history of Magnus Bane, and he'd better keep up.

"Look," he says, "I know this marriage came like a bolt from the blue. We're—we're both making the best of it. I've lived with Magnus for a long time. I know who he is. He's not easy, never mind his claims to the contrary. But I don't walk away from people I've chosen."

Catarina turns her head toward the voices of the others, coming down the path.

"Good," she says, softly enough that it is meant for Alec alone. "That was all I wanted to know."

*

Their late lunch turns into afternoon drinks. Around the third round, a cadre of Magnus's fellow post-grads enter the bar, because Magnus had to suggest one of those obscure establishments that are only known among the senior students. Buoyed by the cheap champagne they toasted with, they make room for the extra company. More drinks happen, before Catarina excuses herself due to an early morning. News is exchanged, the toils of research are lamented. Finally, in a fit of insouciance, Alec lets Magnus narrate the—half genuine, half fictitious—origins of their unlikely union.

The matching titanium bands on their hands clink together as Magnus finishes his rather elaborate version of the events, his fingers twined with Alec's. He keeps doing that, Alec has noticed. He wonders, now, after the fact, if Magnus minds how unembellished their rings are. They were chosen more for Alec's restrained taste than his own lavish aesthetic.

"That is fucking romantic," Clary tells the table at large. Forever a lightweight and refusing to admit it, she's been slipping down along Maia's shoulder for the last hour. "Put it in a book. I have pictures. But I promised not to show 'em."

"Not that your new husband isn't completely dreamy," says one of the post-grads, whose name has long since blinked out from Alec's memory, "but dating a roommate? Bold move, Bane."

"I did that!" Clary says brightly. "Am. I'm still doing it. It's going _great._ "

" _Roommate_ was never really your most significant relationship with Simon, Fray," Maia points out. "Also, if I was behind the bar, I'd stop serving you now."

"If everyone is done casting aspersions on my choice of partner," Magnus says, with an edge that belies his apparent intoxication, "we should call it an evening."

"It's your day, you decide when it ends." Maia shrugs lightly. "I'll get Clary home, you two... do the same for each other."

The nameless grad student laughs, three beers rude. "Still, if I was going home with _him_ —" she waves her glass at Alec "—I wouldn't be too picky about his provenance, either."

Alec barely has time to stare before Magnus snakes a hand around his waist, lining himself up with Alec's tensed frame. "Oh, darling, you _wish_. You wouldn't make it to the street, much less the door."

Somebody else bursts into raucous mirth across the table. Magnus's hair brushes Alec's cheek. Alec bends down to him to murmur, "Let's just go."

He doesn't want a scene. He also kind of doesn't want Magnus to move away.

So, while Maia herds Clary out of the booth, Alec wraps an arm around Magnus's shoulders, snatches up their coats with his free hand, and leads the four of them out before the rest of their table catches wise.

He's drunk too much. The chill in the air provides some relief. Magnus crowds in to do up his coat buttons. Alec could have done that himself, but it's nice to have Magnus close, tucking Alec's scarf solicitously under his collar.

"Good night!" Maia calls out, swaying against Clary herself. "Be safe! And happy, or some shit!"

"Will do!" Alec replies. "Text me when you're home!"

"Don't tell me you're gonna check your phone tonight, you fucking nerd!" With a mock salute over her shoulder, she turns toward the tram stop, Clary in tow.

It's so near to normal that it makes Alec laugh, at a rough, content rasp, because Maia exists, because their friends came to City Hall today, because Magnus is right beside him on the quiet street.

Then, with a heart-clenching lurch, Maia's parting comment slots into context, the last in a line of sideways glances and significant giggles aimed at him all day.

This is their wedding night. Even if they're only going home on a weekday night in the middle of semester. Everyone Alec has spoken to today is assuming he's about to—oh, _fuck._

That is the _worst_ swear word for his brain to supply at this particular moment.

 _Our friends don't care about our sex lives that much,_ he told Magnus, and here he is, overthinking what his friends might think about an issue that is not an _issue,_ since nothing is going to happen.

His mouth is dry. He's coming down from the peak of inebriation that carried him this far, sinking into reality again. They survived the day. Nobody voiced any suspicions. They can go back to their ordinary lives.

Absurdly, his first instinct is to seek out Magnus. The only person with whom he can be totally honest now.

Magnus is ambling beside him, his hands in his pockets, his gaze alighting on random details in the dim windows that are their only observers.

"You're a million miles away." Magnus sounds perfectly mellow.

"Long day," Alec says, and Magnus chuckles.

"You don't say. I guess we could've fled earlier, but since we both already cleared our calendars..."

"We might as well look the part? Celebratory drinks included?"

"Something like that." Magnus is clearly not as drunk as he seemed, and Alec feels the walk brace his own thoughts, too. "That's the part people will remember. That we were happily buzzed and all over each other—within the bounds of what you can get away with in public."

"You had a plan, huh?" Alec can't analyze the dip in his own tone. The lump rising in his throat, even less so. He covers it up with, "You know what? We should get takeout from that Georgian place and then, say, watch a historical documentary with a nice British narrator."

Magnus's smile is both wry and indulgent. "I do enjoy listening to you take their facts apart with geeky fervor. It... sounds like a good ending for today."

"Okay." Alec inhales, trying to rekindle that satisfied spark that lit in him earlier.

This is what he knows. This is okay. This, he can do.

*

Alec makes a pile of the takeout boxes on the kitchen counter, too tired to sort them into the recycling. The blue shimmer of the TV winks out, leaving the stairway lamp as the only light still on. He pads back into the living room to find Magnus depositing the sleeping cat into an armchair. The throw pillows are set at decorous angles on the couch, tidied away, too.

Tomorrow is an ordinary day. Magnus has deadlines, Alec has coursework. They move across the living room, each on their own course, only to intersect at the foot of the stairs. The bathroom is old and inconveniently tiny; generally, Alec will brush his teeth first and escape upstairs to let Magnus take his time with his evening routine.

"You go first." Alec gestures at the bathroom. "I'm gonna take a minute before I sleep."

It was comfortable to nestle into the couch, eat slightly too much, and complain about the popularization of historical minutiae to Magnus, while the Chairman stretched out in the space between their feet. It was lovely and low-key and like any other evening in the last three years.

He can't smother the feeling that it isn't enough. That he's holding Magnus back, that he's claimed something that isn't his to have, even when Magnus has told him, surely ad nauseam, that it's okay. His own reluctance is veering close to disrespect for Magnus's generosity.

Magnus's fingers skim the close-shaved side of his own head. "All right. Sleep well when you do." With a small shrug, he turns away.

If Alec lets him go, he'll never get this feeling out. It'll live in the cage of his heart until it cracks with wear.

"Hey." He pitches his voice low. "Thank you."

Magnus looks back over his shoulder, an improbable piece of grace. "You're welcome, I think. For what?"

Alec sits down on a step. "For today. For all of this. For... having me. I don't think I ever _said_ it in so many words." His fingers curl together. The band of the ring catches on his nail, sleek and still strange.

Magnus rests his back against the wall. "I told you, it's not a hardship. You get to finish your degree, I don't have to find another housemate. Besides, I can hardly break the Chairman's heart." The glimmer in his eye undercuts his pragmatic wording.

"Don't do that," Alec whispers. "Don't act like this is nothing. Among other things that probably occurred to me way too late, you're the one that actually goes on dates. Hooks up with anybody with any regularity. I can't really ask you—"

Did he think that _we never talked about having sex while pretending to be married_ was going to come out without a hitch?

"Illuminate me, if you would," Magnus says. "How many grad students on the last leg of their dissertation have sex lives? I'll be running on coffee and fumes. Boring my prospective hook-ups to sleep with corpus linguistics, because that's the only channel my brain is going to show."

"Can you not right now?" Alec has stumbled this far, he can't get waylaid by Magnus. "You're two years out at least. Were you just gonna go celibate until the next decade?"

"Were you?" Magnus retorts, quite gently, but Alec stalls for a heartbeat.

"I—I hadn't really made it that far yet," he admits. Heat rises along his throat. "It's not such a big deal. You know how I work."

"Alec." Magnus sighs his name. "If you want to look at some beautiful man for six months and plan your move, then throw out the plan at the last second and just improvise... well, you _should_. Go with my blessing."

That summary of his dating methods should not be as accurate as it is. That Magnus can describe them with such dry kindness is, Alec supposes, a testament to their friendship.

"Is that what you want?" He folds his hands between his knees. "Like, we can both fool around with other people, as long as we do it on the down low." On the surface, it's a simple solution. His ribs still seem to try and bend into knots at the idea.

Magnus's gaze drifts off into the dark. "It would be a classic arrangement, no? For a marriage of convenience."

Alec wishes he could laugh, just to lighten the choked ambience, the inexpressible weight hanging in the air. This is a practical issue. They're not _together._ They only need to give the impression. Alec may be feeling weird sympathetic warmth for Magnus, the kind of generic pleasure you can get from incidental human closeness, because the body doesn't discriminate. Touch is touch. There is a comfort in it.

And they agreed that public displays of affection would strengthen the ruse. It doesn't mean they have to get up to anything in their private spaces, behind closed doors. There, they can simply be themselves.

He musters his voice. "There's a bit of a problem, though. It might look bad if one of us was... seen with somebody else. Wouldn't exactly be a picture of marital bliss."

"You have a point." Magnus bobs his head in slow agreement. "Okay. At least until you're on firmer ground with immigration affairs, let's shelve this. No other people, even discreetly. If something changes, we'll talk about it like adults."

 _If something changes._ If one of them meets somebody. If one of them falls in love. Alec makes himself imagine it: Magnus finding somebody that could hold his fretful fascination, could make him feel safe, could be a match for his mercurial charm and intelligence. Could Alec let him have that, even if it meant destabilizing his own situation all over again?

He could. For Magnus, who's done so much for him, he could do that. There are always other options. Magnus proved that to him.

"Agreed." He rises, loosens a stiffened muscle in his leg. "See you in the morning."

"You will." Magnus cuts a half-lidded glance at him, and slips away like a light suddenly shuttered.

Alec goes up the stairs to his bed. He lies awake for a long time, the ring a subtle weight on his finger, the strange, squirmy feeling of _not enough, not enough_ still wound around his heart.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title: New Order — "Someone Like You"

**Author's Note:**

> If you're enjoying this, please do leave me a word. I could use it right now. ❤
> 
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> 
> tumblr @[poemsfromthealley](https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com/)  
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